With the success and widespread use of wireless smart devices, banks and financial institutions have turned to wireless smart devices as a means to provide customers with access to credit card accounts, debit card accounts, and other types of accounts. As used herein, the term “wireless smart device” refers to a device with processing capabilities that can communicate wirelessly via an electric and/or magnetic field with other devices, including either cellular communications nodes (i.e., base stations) or near field communication devices (i.e., contactless card readers or other wireless smart devices). The wireless smart device may be equipped with an on-board memory and processing capabilities and may contain one or more applications that perform different functions, such as effecting contactless payment and loyalty transactions. Examples of wireless smart devices include contactless cards, contactless fobs, and mobile phones or personal digital assistants (PDAs) provisioned with soft cards.
As stated above, in order to communicate wirelessly with other devices, wireless smart devices may utilize near field communications (NFC). Near field communications enable the exchange of data between devices over short distances (approx. 4 inches) by amplitude modulating a radio frequency field, which is received and interpreted by a reader or other NFC-capable device. In one example of NFC, an NFC-capable mobile phone may communicate with a near field communications capable reader or terminal to perform a contact less payment transaction.
As stated above, one type of application that may reside on a wireless smart device is a payment application. For example, a train ticket payment application may allow the user to pay for his or her train tickets by sending secure wireless signals from his or her NFC-enabled phone to a contactless wireless smart device reader. Other examples of wireless smart device applications include credit card payment applications, movie ticket payment applications, coupons, and stored value applications (e.g., university bucks).
In order to perform transactions using one of these applications, the wireless smart device must be provisioned with software and account information. Provisioning may occur via a wired or wireless interface. Provisioning over a wireless interface is also referred to as over the air (OTA) provisioning. As used herein, the term “OTA provisioning” refers to a process of downloading data or applications to a wireless device over a wireless or air interface. For example, OTA provisioning may include methods for distributing new software updates or configuration settings to wireless smart devices. OTA provisioning may include the use of wireless protocols, such as wireless application protocol (WAP) or multimedia messaging service (MMS) or Short messaging service (SMS), to send provisioning data or update packages for firmware or software updates to a wireless smart device so that the user does not have to give his or her device to an administrator to have the device provisioned.
In one example of a conventional transaction involving provisioning of a wireless smart device, the wireless smart device may include a payment application that converts “real” money into “virtual” money that can only be used at locations that accept the virtual money. This virtual money may include so called “university bucks” that may be used for, among other things, purchasing goods or services on a university campus. Thus, if the owner of the device with the university bucks application is also the owner of the bank account used to pay for the university bucks, then the owner/user can provide his or her bank account authentication information to the university bucks application to the purchase university bucks via an electronic funds transfer from the user's bank account. However, if the bank account owner is different from the university bucks application user (as would be the case when a parent owns the bank account used to fund a child's university bucks account), the bank account owner is required to provide his or her bank account authentication information to the university bucks application user in order for the user to replenish his or her university bucks account using the university bucks application. Providing online access to a bank account to the user of a wireless smart device may be undesirable if the bank account owner desires to limit or monitor access to his or her bank account.
Thus, one problem associated with conventional transactions involving provisioning of wireless smart devices is that there is no way using conventional methods to restrict or monitor access to accounts accessible via the devices once authentication information has been provided to device users. For example, a parent and a child may each have wireless smart devices. They each may have the university bucks application on their devices, but the child is only authorized to spend the university bucks. The parent may desire to be aware of each time the child needs to replenish the university bucks account. This is not possible using conventional methods where the parent relinquishes control over the parent's bank account by providing his child with the confidential information necessary to access the parent's bank account.
Accordingly, in light of the foregoing difficulties, there exists a need for improved systems, methods, and computer readable media for providing for secure offline account data transfer between wireless smart devices.